Gun Safety

For this article, we’re going to step away from reloading
brass and look briefly at gun safety. Too often, guns are left unsecured inside
the home, making it easy for children to see it and want to play with it. What
makes this worse is when the ammo is stored in the same location of the gun.

If you’re like me, you begin teaching your children about
gun safety early on. In fact, you’ve probably even brought them in the shop
with you and allowed them to watch on as you reload brass. There is absolutely
nothing wrong with doing so; children need to be taught at an early age to
respect the power of the weapon and the severity of it’s misuse.

Children will be children and want to explore. That’s why
following some basic steps will ensure your firearms and children are safe.

Store in a specially
made gun safe

A gun in the home is the ultimate defense against intruders.
Having your firearm in just any safe will prevent you from gaining access to
your firearm in the case of an emergency. That’s why many gun safe companies
have begun to manufacture specially designed safes that are designed with the
intent of providing quick access.

Many of these safes use biometrics, such as fingerprint
scanning, that allow you to bypass the keycode in the even of an emergency.
Also, they open with a second, all but removing the delay between you and your
weapon.

The downside of biometrics

As with any new technology, there’s always a bad side.
Biometric controls require a constant flow of electricity to operate. Now, many
will have an on-board battery backup that allows for use in the event of power
grid failure. However, they only last so long. The way to avoid being locked
out of your own safe is to have a key override feature.

The downside to this? There’s a key for you to keep track of
and away from your children.

Multi-gun safes

Not all of your firearms are intended for home defense.
That’s why you will likely have a multi-gun safe for storing your rifles and
other firearms. These, however, seldom have biometric features because it would
make them nearly unaffordable. They do have keypad features, however, that
offer a slightly increased security.

The key to keeping your children out of these is to never
tell them the combination. Just be sure you have a key-override and keep the
key stored somewhere they can’t find it. The reason for this is most of these
safes will lock it out after a number of failed attempts at the code.

Gun Cabinets of Yesteryear

We’ve all got them; gun cabinets passed down from our
grandfather’s grandfather that has become a family heirloom. Many of these are
more for decoration than safety and have no security features whatsoever. These
should be used solely for decoration, unless you added a locking mechanism that
can not be hacked.

Safety Bullets

Perhaps not an entirely new concept is the idea of using a
safety bullet in your firearm. Essentially, a safety bullet is just a dummy
bullet that allows you to keep your firearm loaded and the first round being unusable.
The idea behind this is should a child gain access to your firearm, or should
there be an accidental discharge, the first round won’t fire. And, without the
first round firing, the gun won’t cycle the next round without the shooter’s
help.

Remember, gun safety is the number one priority of gun
ownership. Be smart and responsible whenever dealing with firearms.